But the process will be a long one:
centuries of continuous mental effort in unravelling the causes of
social ill-being and repeated experiments to determine the remedies
(des experiences reiterees de la societe). In any case we cannot
look forward to the attainment of an unchangeable or unqualified
felicity. That is a mere chimera "incompatible with the nature of a
being whose feeble machine is subject to derangement and whose
ardent imagination will not always submit to the guidance of reason.
Sometimes to enjoy, sometimes to suffer, is the lot of man; to enjoy
more often than to suffer is what constitutes well-being."
D'Holbach was a strict determinist; he left no room for freewill in
the rigorous succession of cause and effect, and the pages in which
he drives home the theory of causal necessity are still worth
reading. From his naturalistic principles he inferred that the
distinction between nature and art is not fundamental; civilisation
is as rational as the savage state. Here he was at one with
Aristotle.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273